Get me Out of My Mind (Brendon Urie)

29. Closer now, and Closer still

ERIN

A lot of interesting things are happening in my present right now. But a lot of things have happened in the past, as well.

Let me take you back a few years, my friends, and tell you the tale of how I met my... uh... friend.

---

June, 2012

I don't like this girl. I do not like her one single, tiny, microscopic bit.

If college means I have to share an apartment with her, then I think I am just going to go and join the circus, thank you very much.

My so called room"mate" stands in front of me smiling in a manner that I can only assume is condescending, because there is absolutely no chance that she would be smiling at me genuinely. Right? Right.

Yes, I think as I appraise her, she is my room"mate" but there is no chance that we will ever be "mates" in the sense of friends. Or, ah, in other senses- but get your mind out the gutter there, girls and boys!

I mean, for starters, I do not do friends. No, siree. I do not do friends because no one likes me. Those few people who have been foolish enough to try and approach me in the past have all run away screaming the minute I opened my mouth and started jabbering off at them.

And I can automatically tell that this girl here is not the kind of person who will tolerate my jabbering and hysterical antics, either. She stands there, looking all pretty and perfect and utterly not me. Am I on candid camera? Is this some kind of reality show where they put an odd couple of roommates together? I would almost assume it was, except I don't exactly have friends who would put me on a show like that.

Now, you can give me the spiel about "not judging a book by it's cover blah blah blah" all you like, but I think sometimes the contents of these metaphorical "books," are rather obvious, thank you very much. If you saw a gold covered book, for example, then you would know it was worth more than the shitty, torn comic book with soda stains on the outside next to it, wouldn't you?

Spoiler alert. I am obviously the damaged comic book in this scenario. My roommate is obviously my counterpart, the thick mint condition paperback classic covered in gold- and fuck it, with diamonds set into the spine. Why not. I'm going all out for this analogy after all, anyway. Not like I need to give my imagination a budget, do I?

My roommate clearly has class. I can see that by the pristine little outfit, her little light blue dress and her fashionable woven sandals with wedge heels so high that I would have already fallen over by now, were I wearing them. I can see it by her honey skin and her sun-kissed curls and her subtly done makeup. Not to mention her face- which I can sum up in one word. Beautiful. That one word alone shows that she is the opposite of me, now, doesn't it?

"I'm Claire!" She introduces herself- and oh, dear God, even her voice is pretty. Of course it is. She doesn't have the annoying undertone of a New York accent like I do- not thick enough of a New York accent to make me sound cool, like harley Quinn or something, just enough to distort my words and make people from other states in the US grimace- in fact her voice has just a slight hint of something vaguely hispanic sounding. It's also sweet and friendly, something that I immediately decide must purely be an act- why on earth, after all, would this girl want to be friends with me?

"Erin," I mumble down at my feet. I would much rather look at these scuffed and shitty converse shoes, I decide, than at someone so pretty that I must look like a pile of refried beans in comparison. This is not to knock refried beans, folks- I personally love them, as I do all Mexican food. But they are far from the prettiest food on the plate, which I feel describes me in... ah... food terms.